Title

Nasal Moisture

Problem Scenario

what happens when a person applies moisture to the outside of their nose?

Broad Question

when a person applies moisture to the outside of their nose, does it effect there scent?

Specific Question

When a person inhales a scent after wetting the outside of their nose, does it improve their sense of smell?

Hypothesis

I hypothesis that when a person wets the outside of their nose, they will be able to smell better than when their nose is dry

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable:

nasal moisture

Dependent Variable:

scent

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

amount of nasal moisture on the outside of a person's nose
amount of vanilla in container
amount of water in container
blindfold positioning over a person's eyes

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

nasal moisture
independent variable
dependent variable
control variable
serial dilution

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General Plan

First fill five different cups with water and mix in certain amounts of vanilla into each. Next have a blindfolded person smell the liquid mixtures in the five different cups with a dry, normal nose. then have them smell the same containers again, but this time after they have wet the outside of their nose. Collect the data from each smelling session and repeat the process multiple times with numerous people. Finally use the data from all the people smelling with both a wet and dry nose, and turn it into a graph.

Potential Problems And Solutions

I may run out of vanilla, so to stop this from happening I could buy two bottles of vanilla to ensure I do not run out, maybe even three bottles. The blindfold might fall off, so I will tie it tight around someone's head, just not too tight. I may have too little or too much vanilla mixed with the water on accident, so to make sure this doesn't happen I will measure the amount of vanilla I insert into the water. Someone could have super great smell and that would give them an advantage and mess up the data, but before I ask a person to help me with my experiment, I will ask the volunteer if they have a normal sense of smell.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

Someone could inhale the vanilla on accident and get it up in their nose, but I will make sure this doesn't happen by telling the person that is smelling the mixture when they are just above the cup and to stop there and smell. The blindfold could be too tight and constrict someone's head, but I will make sure the blindfold is tied correctly and snugly so it is perfectly okay around the persons head. A Q-tip could get lodged in someone's nose if it accidently slips when someone is applying moisture to the outside of their nose, but I will tell them to take caution and make sure this doesn't happen by letting them look in the mirror when they are putting on the moisture.

Experimental Design

(add the correct headings from the experimental design page before beginning)

What is your experimental unit?

This is the base unit of your experiment, for example, one plant, one ice cube, one dish. It is the thing you will be measuring.
smell with nasal moisture

Number Of Trials:

This is how many times you will repeat the experiment.
30

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:

This is the number of different treatments you will use. For example, if you are comparing rust formation using salt and no salt, there would be 2 subjects in each trial. If you were comparing rust formation with no salt and three different amounts of salt, then you would have 4 subjects in each trial.
2: the water in the cups and the vanilla mixed into the water

Number of Observations:

How many measurements will you take for each experimental unit times the number or trials
60

When data will be collected

Looking for an actual date or dates here. This is requiring you to commit to your project.
2/4/13-2/9/13

Where will data be collected?:

Be specific.
at school or at my house, in my kitchen, on the kitchen table

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
vanilla	1 bottle	home	$0
water	7 cup fulls	science classroom sink	$0
test tubes	7	science classroom	$0
poster board	1	Biche	$5

Detailed Procedure

There will be five exactly the same containers filled with 9 drops of water. A certain amount of vanilla will be mixed with the water; four drops for one container, three drops for another, two drops for the next, one for another container, and no drops for the last. a person will first smell all five mixtures, blindfolded, with their nose normal and dry and tell me what they smell and I will record whether the smell the vanilla in which container. Then they will smell the same mixtures again after they have been rearranged, but only after they have wet the outside rim of their nose with a cotton swab, and tell me what they smell in which containers and I will record it. This process will be repeated with 30 different people. I will collect the data along the way and in the end calculate whether scent is improved by adding moisture to the outside of a nose. Then I will turn the data into a graph.

Diagram

Photo List

7 containers of water and vanilla mixture
vanilla

Time Line

December: learn about the science fair.
Beginning of January: Choose science fair topic and create wiki page
January 18th: wiki complete
February 4th: Begin experiments
March 1st: experiments complete
March 7th: Analysis
March 15th: wiki page complete
March 22nd: posters complete
March 29th: KMS science fair

Data Table

trial	scent	nasal moisture
30

trial: 30
Independent Variable:scent
Dependent Variable: nasal moisture

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Data Analysis

All Raw Data

KEY:
yes= smelled the vanilla/smelled correctly
no=didn't smell the vanilla/didn't smell correctly
dry=smelled with a dry/regular nose
wet=smelled with a wet nose/nasal moisture

tube 1 dry	tube 2 dry	tube 3 dry	tube 4 dry	tube 5 dry	tube 6 dry	tube 7 dry
no	no	yes	yes	no	no	no
yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no
yes	yes	no	no	yes	no	no
yes	yes	yes	no	no	no	no
yes	no	no	no	no	no	no
yes	no	no	no	no	yes	no
yes	no	no	no	no	no	no
yes	yes	no	yes	yes	no	no
yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no	no
yes	yes	no	no	no	yes	no
yes	yes	yes	no	yes	no	no
yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes	no
yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no
no	yes	no	no	no	yes	no
yes	yes	no	no	no	no	no

tube 1 wet	tube 2 wet	tube 3 wet	tube 4 wet	tube 5 wet	tube 6 wet	tube 7 wet
yes	no	no	no	no	no	no
no	yes	no	no	no	no	no
yes	no	yes	no	no	no	no
yes	yes	no	yes	no	yes	yes
yes	yes	no	yes	no	yes	no
yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no	no
yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no	no
yes	yes	yes	no	no	no	no
yes	yes	yes	no	no	no	no
yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes
yes	yes	no	yes	no	yes	yes
yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	no
yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no
yes	no	no	yes	yes	yes	no
yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no

Graphs

Photos

This is a picture of the test tubes I mixed vanilla and water in to make people smell for my experiment. There are seven tubes.

This is a picture of the vanilla I used to put in the tubes(it was mixed with water though) above for people to smell for my experiment.

the sticker on the bottle reads: Baker's Imitation Vanilla Flavor

Results

During this experiment I measured the percent of people that can smell several different mixtures of vanilla and water. I filled seven test tubes with different mixtures of water and vanilla: the first tube having more vanilla, the second a little less, the third a little more less, and so on until the seventh tube has the least amount of vanilla in it. What this does is dull the vanilla scent, so it is harder to smell the tubes that come later in the serial dillution. I have done this to challenge a person's nose, so I can learn if a person will smell better after they wet their nose; that is the point of my whole experiment. At the end of my experiment, it turned out that when a person wets their nose, they can smell better than with a dry nose.

Conclusion

I hypothesized that when a person wets the outside of their nose, they will be able to smell better than with a dry nose. The percent of detected scent is higher when a person smells with a wet nose than with a dry nose, most of the time; therefore I accept my hypothesis. I suspect the reason the percent of detected scent turned out higher when a person smells with a wet nose because dogs have wet noses too, and they wetness on their nose traps mucus and helps them smell better. I figured in the beginning of this experiment; if a dog smells better with a wet nose, why can't a human? The answer is; a human can smell better with a wet nose, therefore making my hypothesis true.

Discussion

Later on in my experiment, I had discovered some strange details about my data. I noticed these strange patterns after I had downloaded my graphs onto my wiki page, and the data was shown in a big graph form where all my data could stand out at the same time. And there, for tube five, I noticed the percent of smell detected was higher when smelled with a wet nose than a dry nose. This puzzled me and made me wonder why for this one tube, it was better detected when it had been smelled by a person after they had wet their nose. Then I asked some of the volunteers that had smelled the vanilla and water mixtures in the tubes with both a dry and wet nose, a few questions. Some said that it was harder to smell with a wet nose, but that was only about two or three students. Still, this makes me think whether for some people, maybe with a better sense of smell, if they have a harder time smelling with a wet nose. Possibly the water on the outer rim of their nose masks and dulls their more than average sense of smell, causing them to smell better with a regular dry nose. It still doesn't answer why only that one tube was detected with smell less when smelled with a wet nose, while all the others were detected more.
The whole 'tube five was detected with scent less with a wet nose than with a dry nose' could have been one of my errors. Although, I believe it is. It could have been caused by me though, again assuming that it was a source of error. I did leave the vanilla and water mixtures in the tubes out over night at school once, and in the morning it during class the next day it might not have smelled as fresh and vanilla-y as it would if I had made new mixtures. But the thing is, I was on a deadline and it takes a decent amount of time to fill up all seven tubes, the whole while in a serial dilution, plus I had to clean them out first, and the smell of vanilla, even from tube 7 with the least vanilla, still would linger. I had done this before, so I know, it does not work too well. So for future reference I will use clean tubes each day to make the serial dilutions in, if I ever do this experiment again, or one like it.
Most of the time, except for tube 5, there is a pattern going on that answers my experimental question. The pattern shows that when a person smells a tube with moisture added to the outer rim of their nose, they will be able to smell better than with a regular dry nose. It also shows on my graphs that the percent of detected smell is higher for all the tubes except tube 5 on my Wet Nose graph than on my Dry Nose graph. So there is evidence of my pattern that proves it correctly answers my research question.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

More people need to know how their olfactory senses work. Since your sense of smell has a huge influence on your sense of taste, without scent, you wouldn't be able to taste as much as you can now. Four basic sensations are detected by a human's tongue; sweet, sour, salty, bitter. There is also a fifth sensation triggered by MSG called Umami, while all other tastes are detected by smell. Smell also influences what people think will taste good or bad. When someone smells something good, they think good food, and if they smell something bad, they think the food will taste bad. Most people check the freshness of their food with their nose, by smelling milk or cheese to see if it has gone bad. This is the benefit to science and the community that my project has given. Lots of people, if asked what sense out of touch, hearing, tasting, smelling, or seeing, would they give away if they had to, would answer smell. But of course most of them don't know how it effects their taste, so it would be like giving up tasting too, almost. My point is, smell is important, and while scientists are caught on researcher further the human brain, or other parts of the body, they should be researching the olfactory senses; smell. Now more people can know how important their sense of smell is, by looking at my science fair project.

Background Research

To help me better understand my experiment and give me more information about my research topic, I went online and further researched how the human nose, and a dog's nose, work. The olfactory bulb, locateed int he front of the human brain and communicates your scent to your brain.

References

Abstract

Seven tubes filled with different amounts of vanilla mixed in water; my experiment. My experiment is about how the human nose works and how I can help the world better understand how the olfactory senses work. I am saving one innocent person that knows nothing about the nose sitting in the middle of their face at a time, teaching them how important their nose really is. In my experiment I am putting the human nose to the test. Can a human's nose detect scent better when it has been wet, or when it is regular and dry? That is the question you have all been waiting to hear the answer to. According to my research and data from my experiment, the answer is yes.